The goal is not to make a complete game, it's too much work for me alone. But I think I could release a small playable demo.The game would be online and PvP, no AI for now, no classes for now, something very minimal and easy to code.However, it is an open source project so I try to make things as reusable as possible. So the project may be usefull to people wanting to code a more RPG-oriented FFT, by provinding classes for battle mechanics and the graphical engine.

Technical details

Temporary server written in Perl with Dancer. (Of course I plan to drop HTTP wich is not suitable for the project.) Server written in python using the datagram protocol.Client written in python using Panda3D engine.Source code on github https://github.com/Kivutar/tethicalWebsite: http://tethical.kivutar.me

Galaxymage Redux http://code.google.com/p/galaxymagereduxOpen Source GalaxyMage Redux is an attempt to revitalize the open source game, GalaxyMage with a fresh codebase. GMR is an open-source tactical RPG similar to Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea.

TACTIC Strategy RPG Engine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKwp7k2Bnxg "A technical demo of the pathfinding AI used in my TACTIC SRPG Engine. The algorithm was written using C# and the graphics are handled by the MOgre graphics library." by Mephs11

Tactics http://strayobjects.blogspot.com/p/tactics.htmlDroped "Tactics is currently a clone of Final Fantasy Tactics. However, it does not intend to keep using these sprites - mainly because I do hope to have the game available for download with the option to compete online versus other players (details have not been fully thought out yet)." by Calvin Chen

Tactics Game Engine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZATpmW9LXks A tactics battle game engine that I have written for C# using microsoft's XNA framework. Its very near completion and mainly requires some more art for characters and levels.

"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"

Holy crap where are all these game programmers coming from crawling out the woodwork. If it is at all possible to merge this project with dbp's that would be amazing. Two heads are better than one and there is no reason to have two similar projects not at least contributing to eachother.

My map models are made with blender. You can find it here https://github.com/Kivutar/tethical/tree/master/client/models/maps. For now, textures are 20x20 images applied to each tiles. In a second time, I will try to export a global texture to allow graphists to easyly customize each tile and bake soft shadows like it is the case in FFT.

How do you plan to make your game online and multiplayer ?What server side program ? sockets ?

For now, I'm using a minimal http based server that I developped using Perl and the Dancer framework. You can take a look at the code here: https://github.com/Kivutar/tethical/blob/master/server/server.pl. It is easy to read and extensible, but HTTP is clearly a poor choice as my clients will have to flood the server with requests to know what the other player is doing.

Concerning Smartfox Server, I quickly read their documentation. It looks like the best choice for an ActionScript game. Full featured, well documented, high level, with a tutorial for board games.The downside for me is that there is no python API for client side. (and I am too lazy to write one). I thought that I could use their BlueBox wich is HTTP based too, but it is just tuneling so I will have to parse the packets in this case too.There is also the fact that it is very heavy and has a cost...

Looks like sharing a server will be less easy that I thought due to client side technologies we use :/

Have you guys considered Common Lisp? I can shoot you some books on it, if you want them. It can be faster than C++ in some cases, it's memory usage is roughly equivalent to Java (garbage collection), and it's very flexible.

Me 2 ! But the big difference is that i just made a bunch of typical tiles like :Tile : (height definable)Slope : (height definable)Tree : (height definable)

I believe that with these 3 type, you can do almost every map you want.But it also use more memory especially in Flash.

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and bake soft shadows like it is the case in FFT.

Do you say that you can bake shadows in real time with Panda3D ?Flash sadly can't do that.

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Looks like sharing a server will be less easy that I thought due to client side technologies we use :/

That's right.Also, i believe that we do not have the same way of doing things. So maybe my path-finding or area-finding algorithm may not be totally appropriate for your approach.At least the general concepts are the same.

Anyway, even if we can only share a little bit of our work, let's do it !And for my project, i don't know how far i am gonna go with it, and how long i can work on it. It is very time consuming.

Do you say that you can bake shadows in real time with Panda3D ?Flash sadly can't do that.

No I didn't mean that (sorry for my english, I'm French). Panda can bake realtime shadows, but I'd like to keep close to official FFT maps in which the shadows are baked in the textures. I meant that exporting the whole map texture in a single image make it easier for texture artist, they won't have to know how to use blender to contribute textures.

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Also, i believe that we do not have the same way of doing things.

Yes you're right. We have to admit that we made different choices.

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Anyway, even if we can only share a little bit of our work, let's do it !

Sure

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And for my project, i don't know how far i am gonna go with it, and how long i can work on it. It is very time consuming.

I know what you mean. I feel exactly the same. But your project is very good. Please don't let it die like Calvin Chen did. Reinventing the wheel is fun, but not 3 times.